


Par For The Course

by CaptainJZH



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen, Golf Quest Mini, Rose's Room, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 14:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJZH/pseuds/CaptainJZH
Summary: Steven finds out the ending to Golf Quest Mini isn’t the one he experienced. He doesn’t take it well.





	Par For The Course

Steven sat at the end of his bed, idly watching TubeTube videos on his phone. He’d somehow gone down the rabbit hole of watching entire Let’s Plays of games he had already played, partly to see the gamer’s reaction but also to relive the experience of playing it without actually playing it again. It was a good thing he never had any actual ‘work’ to do.

 

Today, he’d found a TubeTuber who was getting 100% completion on Golf Quest Mini, a task he himself would have accomplished if it weren’t for Amethyst wrecking the TV.  _ Again _ . Still, as the TubeTuber reached the end, Steven was excited to see his reaction to the Secret Ending. 

 

_ “Project F.L.O.G! That's golf backwards.” _

 

“Here it comes…”

 

_ “What’s this?” _

 

The TubeTuber didn’t really say anything, kinda just sitting there with the same blank expression as the rest of the Let’s Play.

 

_ “June 9, 2014? But that was the date  _ he  _ disappeared…” _

 

“Agh, I love this part!” Steven exclaimed as the main character, Ace, opened the cryogenic chamber.

 

Instead of finding his long-lost father alive and well, however, a pair of red eyes appeared inside the chamber, accompanied by a low growling sound.

 

_ “Dad?”  _ Ace asked, his hopes dashing before his eyes.

 

A robotic hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing Ace by the throat. The game then cut to black, followed by the words  _ “To Be Continued in: Golf Quest Mini 2 - Father’s Reckoning,” _ followed by the cheerful chiptune music of the TubeTuber’s outro.

 

Steven silently placed his phone down on the bed, sitting up, expressionless. That...that wasn’t the Secret Ending  _ he  _ saw! There...there were just multiple secret endings! Yeah! That made sense! In fact, he could probably find a hundred TubeTubers who had gotten the same ending he did.

 

Which was how he then spent the next several hours, desperately watching every LP of the game on TubeTube, all of them reaching the same, incredibly dark ending tying into a sequel that they never made. When that failed, Steven figured he must have been the only one to get that ending, and was determined to leave it at that…

 

Until he suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, doubt filling his mind. What if that  _ was  _ the secret ending? No, he resolved, it couldn’t be. The real secret ending had Ace and his father living happily ever after! The only solution, therefore, was to 100% the game all over again, which he was certain he could do.

 

He wouldn’t rest until he saw the  _ happy  _ secret ending again with his own eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

“Steven?” Connie called out as she entered Steven’s house, “Steven, are you there?”

 

She looked up and saw Steven staring bleary-eyed at the television screen, 

 

“Steven, we were supposed to go to Funland today,” Connie reminded him, trying to avoid a scolding tone. She noticed that Steven was playing Golf Quest Mini. “...I thought you already beat that game.”

 

“I did. And I need to beat it again.”

 

Connie went up to Steven’s loft, sitting down next to him on the bed.

 

“Any particular reason why?” she asked, concerned.

 

Steven didn’t answer as he beat the final boss, triggering the secret ending cutscene.

 

“This is why,” he said, shaking nervously.

 

_ “Project F.L.O.G! That's golf backwards.” _

 

“This is it…”

 

_ “What’s this?” _

 

“Please, oh  _ please _ …” he begged the TV screen.

 

_ “June 9, 2014? But that was the date  _ he  _ disappeared…” _

 

“Steven…?” Connie said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

 

The ending was just as it was in the LPs, with the robot arm of Ace’s father grabbing him, followed by the bleak  _ To Be Continued _ screen. 

 

“No, no, NO!” Steven shouted, tears forming in his eyes. “That can’t be the ending! Not like this!”

 

He grabbed the TV and shook it violently. “There...there has to be something I did wrong! He’s supposed to find his dad, and he’s alive, and he’s happy and they make a golf pun at the end and...and…”

 

He opened his eyes and found that he’d grabbed the television so hard that the screen cracked under his strength.

 

“Oops,” he nervously chuckled, taking a few steps back. He suddenly became aware of Connie’s presence, remembering their plans for the day. “Oh shoot, I’m so sorry Connie, I completely got caught up with...this.”

 

“It’s okay,” Connie smiled. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

 

Steven looked towards the glitching TV screen and sighed. 

 

“I think I probably should, yeah.”

 

He sat back on the bed, and began explaining. “Okay, so, like a year ago I finished Golf Quest Mini for the first time, right? But then...as I was watching the secret ending the Gems came in with a Wailing Stone and, well, they broke the TV.”

 

“Of course they did,” Connie commented, trying to hold back a laugh.

 

“Yeah, and so I went to my mom’s room and I asked it to show me the ending of the game and… I guess it turns out the ending it showed me wasn’t the  _ real  _ ending.”

 

Connie nodded. Rose’s Room could only create things from Steven’s imagination, so the ending he saw had to have been the type of ending Steven  _ wanted  _ to see. He did love schmaltz, after all. And she couldn’t imagine the pain he felt when it turned out the “real ending” was just an angsty cliffhanger put in before the developer folded and  _ Father’s Reckoning  _ became nothing more than a demo CD that got sold at auction a few years back for a record sum, only to be panned by reviewers all over.

 

(...Or so she read...)

 

Steven let out a bittersweet chuckle. “I guess an ending where a long lost parent is revealed to be alive all along and they both live happily ever after would naturally be appealing to me… Too good to be true, though.”

 

Connie wrapped Steven in a hug, knowing he needed it.

 

“Heh, thanks,” he smiled.

 

Connie offered a suggestion. “I do know one way you can bring your ending to life…”

 

* * *

 

 

_ “It's me, your father!” Ace’s dad exclaimed as he excitedly hopped out of the chamber. “After decades of cryostation, I'm finally free!” _

 

_ Ace pulled him into a hug, laughing with glee. His father was  _ alive!  _ He shot his fist up into the air, smiling a big smile. _

 

_ “Saving the day is just par for the course.” _

 

“Aaaaaaand...done!” Steven proclaimed as he handed Connie’s laptop back to her. “Whatdoyouthink, whatdoyouthink?”

 

“C’mon, I gotta read it first,” Connie giggled, giving his writing a once-over. “It’s really good!  _ Of course I would have written a continuation from the original ending centered on the themes of lost childhood containing copious amounts of drama and angst,  _ but you do you! You should post this on CF3!”

 

“Really? You think so?”

 

“I  _ know  _ so, Mr. Universe.”

 

“Alright,” Steven chuckled, “I’ll post it, and then we’ll have our day at Funland.”

 

“Sounds like a plan!”

 

Steven looked at the laptop screen, his eyes steadily growing heavy, before he collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.

 

“Steven, did you stay up all night?”

 

“.....I don’t go to school, I’m allowed to do that.”

 

“Ugh,” Connie mock-groaned, “Go to bed, Steven!”

 

“But I don’t wanna!” Steven whined, quickly breaking out into laughter at his own predicament. “I feel really bad I got wrapped up in this… It’s so stupid.”

 

Connie propped Steven up against a pillow, laying down next to him. “It’s not stupid,” she comforted. “In fact, it’s actually a textbook example of the subconscious mind bringing seemingly unrelated ideas together, in this case Ace’s missing father and your—”

 

She was snapped out of her monologue by the sound of Steven snoring. She smiled down at him, snuggling up against his sleeping body. She pulled her laptop closer, posting Steven’s Golf Quest Mini fic under his name, before logging in under her name, and leaving a comment and a kudos.

 

_ “Great stuff! Gotta love a happy ending ;P” _

**Author's Note:**

> "CF3" stands for the Collective For Fanatical Fiction, my idea for the SUverse version of AO3 :p


End file.
